


When He Speaks Her Name

by The_Jeneral



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), mention of Leia's death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 16:59:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13299222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Jeneral/pseuds/The_Jeneral
Summary: Inspired by a Tumblr post by coupdefoudreylo: "Imagine Rey ignoring Benlo every time the force connects them? Like straight up pretending she can’t see him, she can’t hear him. Eventually Kylo believes that maybe it’s true- she doesn’t feel him there. Maybe this is the Force continuing to punish him. Let him see what it is he wants most without being able to do anything about it. Eventually he breaks down, shaking and crying as he watches her and says “I miss you,” and Rey can’t ignore him any longer."I deviated a little from the actual idea, but you get the picture.





	When He Speaks Her Name

_“Rey…”_

The first time he speaks her name, she can’t respond.

Her wounds, both physical and emotional, are too fresh. The memory of his face, of his dark eyes, looking up at her from where he knelt at the rebel base on Crait, was still too raw. So the first time she feels that shimmer in the Force, the first time that all sound falls away except for his voice, echoing like a whisper on a desert breeze, prickling the back of her neck and setting her nerves on high alert, she gives no sign. She wants to. More than anything. On a ship full of her Resistance family, she feels cold and alone, and she knows the remedy would be to turn to him. To accept the solace he offers and give him solace in return. But she can’t. Too much has happened between them to tear them apart, and not enough has happened to bring them together.

So when she realizes he’s there in the cockpit of the _Falcon_ with her, it’s easy to swivel the chair and turn her back on him completely. It’s easy to busy herself with unnecessary business. Checking the coordinates for the three-hundredth time. Tweaking their course a slight, unneeded degree.

“Rey.” His voice is louder now, more insistent. She wonders if the bond is the same as it ever was, or if it’s expanded. Can he see where she is? Is he behind her now, stroking long fingers over the bulkhead of a ship he probably knows better than she does? She could turn around and look, but she doesn’t. She runs diagnostics, tinkers with the hyperdrive, not letting herself see the defeat build in his expression until the connection closes, and she’s alone again. She sighs in relief. In despair.

The second time he speaks her name, she’s afraid to respond.

The Resistance has finally settled in a safe haven, on a small backwater planet far from the reach of the First Order. It’s taken a lot of time and work, but they’ve established a base, and communications have started to filter out to their allies. Plans are in their infancy, and the re-establishment of the Resistance is still fragile.

She’s found a small room, windowless, tucked away from the noise and chaos of a bustling rebellion, where she is able to meditate and practice. Her training with Luke Skywalker was cut short, so she draws on her memories of his lessons, as well as the near-indecipherable Jedi texts, to continue on her own. She’s not sure how effective a self-taught Jedi will be, but all she can do is her best.

She’s thankful she’s in her small sanctuary when the Force connection opens. She still doesn’t know how much the connection between them may have widened, and this featureless room, with its bare four walls, will give away nothing about the location of the Resistance. Nothing that will help Kylo Ren, and therefore the First Order, find her.

But she still doesn’t speak. She doesn’t acknowledge him. She’s afraid if she does, if she opens that door to him, she will let her guard down completely. And he will trick her into saying something that will damn them all. The Resistance has fought too hard and run too far for her to give them away now.

“Are you ready to speak to me yet?” His voice drips with condescension, and while she flinches inside at the sound, she keeps her face impassive, keeps her mental walls up. She picks up her staff and twirls it absently, coming dangerously close to him once or twice. _You’re not here. I can’t see you. I can’t hear you._

“Come now, Rey. This is childish.” He crosses his arms and leans against the closed door, all long limbs and a slash of black against sand-colored walls. “I know you can see me, as clearly as I can see you.”

She still says nothing, concentrates her full attention on her footwork, while he repeats her name, louder now.

“Speak to me! Rey.” Her name is a plea now. “Tell me that you can see me. That you can feel me here with you. Tell me...”

She tosses her staff aside and sits, cross-legged, on the mat in the center of the room. She closes her eyes and settles her mind. She can feel him all right, probing at the edges, reaching for her consciousness. She doesn’t slam the connection shut, doesn’t jerk away. Nothing that would show him that she can feel him. Instead she empties her mind, the way Luke taught her.

“Please.” His voice is as soft as a sigh, and her skin prickles with memory. She’s back in Snoke’s throne room, its walls as red as blood. Her chest heaved from the battle they had just won, but the euphoria faded as Kylo extended a hand to her. Her heart shattered the moment he asked her to rule at his side, because she had failed. Ben Solo hadn’t turned. He was truly gone, and Kylo Ren had won.

The memory strengthened her resolve, and she settled further into her meditation. She wasn’t sharing a Force bond with Ben, and never would again. No, this was Kylo Ren, and it was easy to say no to him.

Or so she tells herself when the connection closes, and he fades from her mind. She ignores the tears that have tracked their way down her cheeks. It’s getting easier to ignore the things that hurt.

She doesn’t respond to him the third time they’re linked, nor the fourth, though his frustration turns white-hot. But by the fifth the anger has drained from him, and he seems resigned.

“I can’t decide,” he says the sixth time he appears, next to her while she sits by the shore of a lake. The moon hangs low in the sky, closer than any moon she’s ever seen, and its reflection in the water illuminates the night. His voice is light, almost conversational. “I don’t know if you’re real or not,” he continues. “You might be. But you could be an illusion. Is this a punishment of some kind? For turning away from the light so completely?”

Her heart hurts to hear this. Despite everything, his voice still twinges something in her soul, and she longs to turn her head. Her lungs ache with the effort of breathing normally, not letting on that can hear him. _You haven’t turned from the light_ , she wants to say. _Not completely. Not when you still sound this conflicted._

Out of the corner of her eye, she watches him adjust his position to sit cross-legged, casual. Where is he, she wonders, on his end? Is he sitting on the floor, or on his bed? _Don’t think about his bed._ She blinks again and focuses forward. Sighs. Contemplates the moonlight. She can’t see him, after all. Can’t hear him.

“Are you really here with me,” Kylo wonders aloud, “or is the Force toying with me? Showing me what I want most, but can never have?” Casual attitude gone, his voice breaks on this last word, and she’s tempted. She’s so tempted to turn to him. But she doesn’t, and his shuddering breath is the last thing she hears before the bond breaks, and then she hears nothing but the lapping of the water against the shore.

As she goes to sleep that night she wonders how much longer this can continue.

Then one night, everything changes.

The disturbance in the Force yanks her from sleep. It’s a violent pull at her midsection, and she curls fetal, protecting herself from the pain even though it comes from everywhere. Tears stream from her eyes, and in an instant she knows.

Princess Leia Organa has died. Not on a battlefield, not in a blaze of glory. But quietly, peacefully, in the dead of night. The base is silent, and it’s likely no one else will realize for hours. She rolls on her back and stares up at the ceiling she can’t see in the dark. She’s the only one that knows that the general has become one with the Force.

An instant later, she realizes that of course. She’s not the only one.

“ _Rey._ ” Her name is a keening wail torn from his chest. The pain in his voice makes her forget about the walls she’s supposed to put up. Makes her forget everything. She sits up and turns to him, remembering a beat too late that she isn’t supposed to see him. But it doesn’t matter, he’s not looking at her. Dressed head to toe in black--it must not be nighttime where he is-- he’s sprawled in the middle of her room, one hand braced on the floor, the other pressed to his heart.

“I know you’re not here. You can’t see me. You can’t hear me. You might not even be real. I don’t care. Rey. My mother… she’s gone, isn’t she?” Kylo lifted his head then, turning anguished eyes up to her, and she’s frozen. Caught. But as he looks at her with glazed and unfocused eyes, he’s doesn’t see her staring back at him. He’s too focused inward, on his own pain, his own regret.

“I didn’t know it would feel like this. I thought I had removed myself. But now there’s this emptiness. This _hole_ in the Force where she was and I...” He draws in breath on a sob, and her vision swims as her eyes fill with tears. She understands. She feels it too.

He drops his head again, his hair obscuring his face from her view. “I’ve lost her for good,” he says. “Just as I lost you. Why is this happening? All I can do is see you. Talk to you. Want you. But you can’t see me, can you? You never will. I’m lost now. Aren’t I?” He sags, defeated, and she can take no more.

Before she can form a coherent thought she’s on her knees before him. She’s not thinking about the bond, about whether or not he’ll be solid under her hands when she reaches out. But when she takes his face between her hands his tears are wet on her palms, and when she pulls his head up he searches her eyes like he wants to drown in them. Her name is a prayer falling from his lips.

They don’t speak. They don’t have to. He pulls her into him, his large body eclipsing her, and she goes willingly, almost eagerly, because it’s Ben. Ben, who buries his face in the curve  of her neck, sighing his loss into her skin. Ben, whose strong hands cling to her, support her, while she cries, mourning the loss of a mentor and friend. Ben, whose heart beats solid and sure against her own.

She knows this changes nothing. That it’s dangerous to let him in. But just for tonight, she needs to be with someone who understands. Just for tonight, she drops her mental walls and soaks in his grief, and lets him absorb hers. Just for tonight, she lets him feel what it does to her when he speaks her name.


End file.
